retiredmartin

6th May 2023.

We’d planned to meet the Southworths on their latest UK trip (tour T-shirts from the usual sites), and figured that rather than go back to Sheffield from Manchester we might as well take the train to Bradford and do a giant loop.

For a start, it was cheaper, and we found Bradford virtually giving away hotel rooms, such was their antipathy towards the Coronation compared to London.

And besides, Mrs RM loves Bradford as much as I do.

She’d also wanted to visit one of the UK’s most attractive bookshops, the Waterstones in the old Wool Exchange,

but typically we got no further than the Exchange Bar, agonisingly a few seconds short of the Midland Hotel.

In truth, I think she just wanted to show how much better her photos were on her new phone and I think she has a point, her camera software making a decent job of cancelling the glare in this cellar bar.

Patronised readers will recall the Exchange is where I tried to get the barman sacked by suggesting the pub wasn’t open when in fact I was just standing at the wrong entrance.

Back in 2021 I was the only (first) customer; now it was the busiest place in town, all ages too.

I picked two versions of Nightjar’s “Lost In Ikea“, cask and keg, and asked a disinterested Mrs RM to tell them apart.

She preferred the cask.

Her interest was piqued by the Midland, Bradford’s premier hotel, at least in terms of grandeur.

I was dispatched to get some supper, and must have had enough of beer as I skipped past an empty looking Shoulder of Mutton on the way to North Parade,

where I found Bradford’s only Royalists.

The city looked as beguiling as ever,

I’d never seen the Ces Podd artwork next to the Record Cafe before.

Sadly, Bradford’s Chinese takeaway scene is not a patch on its curried, but the Noodle Sing (rather than King) does a box of MSG loveliness on noodles for £7.50, or 3 calories per penny.

That one wasn’t taken with Mrs RM’s new camera.